Zohran Mamdani’s Win Shows How To Organize In Spite Of Fascism

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s win in the 2025 general election offers a case study in building diverse coalitions in spite of extremism in the current political landscape. Among the many wins Tuesday night, his win poses the biggest threat to establishment politics. 

And it wasn’t just from the right. Mamdani’s main general election opponent, supported by some Democrats and other elites who don’t readily identify as being on “the right,” echoed many of the same attacks and disinformation. Instead of buckling to the pressures that come with being a Democratic front-runner, Mamdani and his campaign continued to build in partnership with New York voters. 

He didn’t run from his identity or issues of race. He didn’t moderate his progressive, and wildly popular, policies. He addressed them head-on and leaned heavily on shared values with the people he seeks to lead as mayor.  

It’s not to say that this is easy to replicate or that he was a perfect candidate. But the Mamdani campaign offers a glimmer of hope in how we can build political power in the face of excessive wealth and so-called voter apathy. Despite America’s political and economic elites running a disgraced former governor against him—who is super wealthy in his own right—New Yorkers elected a Muslim millennial with an African middle name as their next mayor. 

Nearly a year into the Trump regime, centrists have tried to make people believe that doubling down on appeasement and whitewashing our politics is the answer. From the transphobic tolerance of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the platitudes of New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, the mediocre middle is failing all of us. 

In 2022, Republicans ramped up attacks on trans people with targeted ads aimed at Black and Brown communities on the radio and by mail. And while it didn’t work in the midterm election cycle, the right’s extremist persistence prevailed in 2024, and here we sit in 2025 with a new era of American fascism and massive theft happening daily. 

The response to this shouldn’t have been to hide hands and run from members of our community being attacked; it was to stand firm on our values and also address the needs and conditions of the voters folks claimed to need in 2024. 

Like the multiracial coalition we saw grow post-2016 and take the nation by storm in 2020, the Mamdani coalition is a threat to white supremacy and the extremist vision of America supported by the right, including the GOP. Formations on the right, like NRCC, dug deep into the extremist islamophobic bag to try to scare people of what a Mamdani-esque future would mean for America. 

Spoiler: It would be a major upgrade from whatever the hell timeline we’ve been living in. 

Equality Labs outlined the extremist strategy and online disinformation campaign in a new report looking at the hate campaign against Mamdani. Pointing to a memo from the NRCC head of the 2025 general election, Equality Labs lays bare part of the evolving playbook to inflame and sustain power. 

“This memo and the accompanying posts by elected officials and the Trump administration signal a coordinated disinformation strategy that weaponizes bigotry to drive turnout and erodes democratic norms,” read the report. “Equally troubling is how the rhetoric is moving into action. Hyperbolic claims can easily be turned into discriminatory legislation, politicized investigations, and even calls to deport Mamdani and his supporters.” 

Anti-Mamdani fear tactics even popped up in Georgia’s high-stakes Public Service Commission race. 

Instead of doing meaningful voter outreach, the Georgia GOP doubled down on fear-mongering and disinformation and lost big. One post had a picture of Mamdani, who had nothing to do with the PSC race, and Commissioners-elect Dr. Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard’s images, clearly trying to paint them as radical communists. 

While aimed at raising awareness and offering recommendations to combat Islamophobic and xenophobic disinformation and online harassment, the Equality Labs report offers insight into part of the right’s playbook ahead of 2026. It also indirectly outlines the playbook against progressive changemakers from members of their own party who are scared of progress, most notably Black candidates like former Rep. Cori Bush and Rep. Summer Lee. 

But the Mamdani win shows that we can’t and shouldn’t ignore extremist attacks, including the ones coming from people who claim to be on “our side” and will want our time, treasure, and talents in 2026 and beyond. It’s not enough to denounce or distance ourselves from extremist rhetoric and racist ish. 

We must stand bold and firm in our values and then clearly translate those values in a way that resonates with the people we want to move to action. People want and need leaders who offer clear vision and solutions to the real problems impacting their lives.

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